Saturday, April 5, 2008

To keep running...

Today was different. For the first time, I just wanted to workout alone, and not with the usual gang. I passed on the Saturday team run and instead drove over to the Presidio to run some of the trails I used to run on. It was actually really nice. The weather was perfect, there are so many newly groomed trails, and i was able to get much more hill work in than I normally do on Saturday's down at Crissy Field.

I plan on doing another trail run tomorrow too but most likely in Marin. I think I prefer trail running to street running, not only because it's so gorgeous, but because it requires much more concentration on where I step... which seems to help take my mind off the fact that I'm actually running. And before you know it, 45 minutes has gone by.

So my insight for the last 24 hours..... I picked up a book last night - one of those inspirational women books where people like Ann Curry, Maya Angelou, and some others who I don't recall wrote letters to themselves in their younger years. I just skimmed through it, but there was a common theme - they all wrote about how they wished they weren't such perfectionists with themselves, that they wished they weren't so judgmental to themselves, and that they wished they had listened more to their real passions.... All that resonated with me for SURE. But it was actually interesting because as i was on my run alone this morning, it made me think, what would I write to myself? If I could speak to me at 25, of all the things I did and didn't do, the #1 thing that came to mind that I would have told myself to do: Run everyday. If it wasn't every day, that'd be ok, but run. To not every give up working out and physically pushing myself. And to realize that the sweat and challenge is what helps me tap into my greatest strengths. Ironically, the challenge to make myself stay consistent with exercise has always been one of my biggest challenges. If it were easy, I'm sure the populations obesity rates would not be nearly as high.

Anyway, that thought helped me keep running today. Because in the big picture, I can keep putting one foot in front of the other... The big picture being that I turn 35 this week. Looking back, it would have been easy to make and keep exercise as a core part of my life for the last 10-15 years. I bet I would have been different - have made different decisions in my life.